


Promise of Stay

by fanfic_for_malec



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Car Accidents, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Hospitalization, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 21:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16333736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfic_for_malec/pseuds/fanfic_for_malec
Summary: A hospital. A ER. A night. An car accident. A John Doe admitted.Clary, a doctor of the night shift in that hospital, finds it as a case to remember when an injured come in to find the John Doe. She and Jace come to find a story that helps them to promise each other to stay.





	Promise of Stay

**Author's Note:**

> The original story was written years ago and not as a fanfic. It was written with different place setup and characters and all. But I kept the original storyline. The idea of this story came from a challenge from an old friend. The challenge was that I have to write a story from one word, a promise, "Stay" and make it painful with happy ending and as short as possible. 
> 
> Originally I had named Jace as Herondale in the story on Instagram. But I changed it here to Wayland. Other than that there are no major changes.

It was a busy day. Actually it was like any other day in this ER of St. Peter’s Memorial. I work here. I am the chief resident of the night shift of this ER. I am Clary, Dr. Clary Fray.

Like every day, every night actually if you look outside and sometimes at the clock, the seven of us are rushed off on our feet with the nurses and other junior doctors. Raphael, Luke, Catarina, Ragnor, Jace, I and my brother Sebastian are maybe the damsels of distresses in our own life. But here, in the ER, we are the boss. We are the saviors.

One of the few cases that came on the night of October 19th will probably stick with me forever. That case kinda changed my life, my views toward life and love. That day the weather was also dull as hell, like someone woke up with really disgustingly bad cup of coffee.

Simon, my old friend and paramedic had brought in this guy. Above 30, pale complexion which was badly covered in blood. Bruised ribs, broken limb, concussion on the back of the head, broken nose and a few bleeding cut on the face and hands were all Simon could inform me at the first stage.

Catarina and I had jumped in. Sebastian was there for backup which I was quite sure I’d need.

His bruises were way too bad, gushes were too big and uncontrollable bleeding scared me for a moment. For once I thought I’d lose him on the table before I could even go in to check for concussion or internal hemorrhages when for the second time in twenty minutes he coded. Cat’s tenacity had brought him back and gave me enough time to check for internal injuries. Fortunately he had none.

Collective sigh of relief was there when we found a faint sinus rhythm. That was when I thought maybe we can actually save him. We had stabilized him but his concussion was too bad and for some reason he wasn’t responding to any of the meds.

Simon told me that he was a John Doe. The car in which he was found was newly brought and cops were trying to find the owner. According to the police probably my John Doe had rammed straight into a divider running a red light, no seat belt, so maybe that’s why he was near the passenger seat.

His tox-screen was clean as a whistle. I had no idea what to do with him. I had left him in his room and was walking to the café when Jace found me. He just came in to say Hi when we saw that guy coming in running. For better words, he was hopping, limping with one severely injured leg, few bleeding cuts and bruises and too much blood on his shirt and hands.

Jace ran to him when he had stopped dead in his track in the middle of the ER, frantically looking everywhere, searching for something, or maybe someone. Raphael went to help Jace as I had to go back to my work.

When Jace asked for his name his blank dark brown, clouded eyes locked on him for a moment too long. He was trying to register Jace.

“Alec… have you seen Alec?”

“Who?”

“Alec… Alexander… my… They said… He’s here…” he ran his bloody hands through his hair in exasperation.

When the man didn’t get a reply from Jace he said again, in his half croaked voice “Alec… yay high…” he raised his hand just a few inches above his head height “messy… short black hair… blue shirt… was in my car… I crashed…”

His words were too messed to complete a full sentence but Jace understood enough to find me and ask.

“Blue shirt, taller than me, short black hair… isn’t that your patient, the John Doe?” Jace asked me in low voice.

“Yeah” I looked at the incomer. “He knows him?” I asked Jace.

“Probably.” Jace gave me a knowing look urging me to go with him.

We took the man to my patient because he refused any treatment before he had seen him once. He hovered over the bed and suddenly went jelly on legs. Jace held him up and let him sit on the side of her bed. Definitely this incomer knew him.

“It’s… him…” He mumbled and slightly drooping as his adrenaline rush dissipated. “That’s him… He’s Alec.”

“Sir, you should get your cuts treated now.” Jace said calm and politely.

But he stood there, looking at man on the bed, immobile.

“He isn’t going anywhere. Let me look at the cuts, please.” Jace said reassuring and pleading him at the same time.

“Is he going to live?” he started shaking his head as soon as the question left his lips as if it came out wrong. “He’ll be alright, right? Please tell me I haven’t killed him, please.” He started to sob.

“No… no, he is good. He is alright, he will live. He has got a lot of injuries so he is just unconscious now but he’ll be fine.”

I cringed inward. Jace didn’t know that he was unresponsive to meds. Anyway I had brought a suture tray in for Jace knowing very well that man wasn’t going to move anywhere.

Jace started washing his cuts and kept talking to him. “Who is he? Your friend?”

“No.”

“Brother? Family?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend? Fiancé? Colleague?”

“No.”

Now that last ‘No’ had got both me and Jace stumped. Jace’s hand paused and hovered over his bloody nose when we exchanged a glance.

“He is my life… he is my… everything.” As if he was talking to himself, in a very low voice he said.

Jace and I exchanged glances again. “What happened?” Jace asked in an equally low voice.

“I was abducting him.” He said without any trepidation, unceremoniously.

Jace’s fleeting look saw the frisson of alarm in my eyes. His were weirdly calm though. “Abducting him? Why?”

The man closed his eyes, as if remembering the event was much painful than Jace putting stitches on his forehead. He suddenly started talking. “I asked him to stay… he wanted to leave… just like 18 years ago, when he asked me to stay but I left him.”

His eyes were still closed. Jace didn’t give him much morphine yet he didn’t even flinch when Jace started to clean another cut under his eye. As if he was in trance, he kept talking.

“Alec and I knew each other a long time ago. We were in high school together. We were best of buddies, best friends. And our friends used to call us soul mates… made for each other…” his lips curled in to a faint smile.

“But we never thought of each other like that… until right after high school… when I decided to go away to study in medical school.” The faint smile vanished.

“He always supported me, my dreams but he knew I had another reason for going away. He knew I wanted to be with Camille, that I was chasing her. I thought I loved her… and she loved me… but Alec understood me far too well.” He looked at Alec, that time with a warm smile. Jace was done cleaning his face. The man was really good looking with his Asian features, brown eyes and light caramel skin. Jace moved his injured leg on the table and sat on the couch to start treating.

 

“I didn’t understand him, or even listen to him. I was utterly smitten by Camille and I left. Distance started to break the friendship we had. We stopped talking day by day. When I had come back after graduation he was completely changed. He didn’t come to see me, neither had I gone due to my ego.” He shifted slightly to pick the unconscious man’s hand and enclosed it in both of his own.

“On the last Sunday before summer vacation, I had run into him in the church. I didn’t even recognize him at first. The boy I had left behind was beautiful, with messy but artful mop of hair, gleaming bright hazel eyes and purely enchanting smile, attractive.” The man smiled softly, probably remembering memories.

“The man I saw at the church didn’t smile, his eyes were glassy… still… like frozen, there was no warmth in that hazel. His hair was badly cropped at the neck… like someone chopped them off angrily, or maybe he really did, uneven lairs pointing at every direction. Still beautiful but scary. Not that attractive he used to be. He looked right into my eyes but didn’t say anything, neither did I. He paused for a few moments and then walked past me.” The smile vanished I noticed.

“I didn’t know what had happened to him until that night when I went to meet my classmates from school. When I asked them about him, they called him faggot. I was shocked because Alec never told me he was gay. They told me that after I had left for college, 4 months later he had an incident, right around the time he stopped talking to me. He was raped.”

Jace’s eyes flew back to his face and I stood there shocked. He caressed Alec’s hand and closed his eyes, in vain attempt to drown that memory. Jace understood that the pain was overwhelming him when he squirmed uncomfortably. Jace looked at me. I gave him another dose of morphine.

“That night I couldn’t sleep.” His voice startled us. “I thought next morning I’d go to his house… but the morning news was even worse.” He gulped loudly. “His name was on the news, among the 20 people who died in a highway bus accident.” He paused to curse inwardly in pain.

“He was going away for his new job. Two days later police confirmed that all passengers were dead just because of the severity of the accident. I didn’t know how to react. All I could think was he left me without saying good bye, without giving me a chance to explain myself. I didn’t even go to his funeral.

I sulked in my room, with memories of him from school. I remembered how he used hug my pillow and lie of my bed whenever he was in my room. Camille was long gone from my life after I found myself as bi. She was not for me. Even around her I couldn’t stop thinking about Alec. I couldn’t forget Alec, I couldn’t accept his death. I was sitting in my bathroom hidden because I couldn’t hear the sound of bagpipes of the funeral. That was when I realized I just wanted him. I only ever wanted Alec. I was in love with Alec. And Alec, tried to stop me before, asked me to stay because he loved me too. He was gay, for me. And that’s why he never told me. All the times he said ‘I love you’ to me, wasn’t just as friends. He really meant them.

I was abandoning him anyway, for Camille. He didn’t see a reason to make me stay with a bond that he thought would only suffocate me or make me abandon him more.

So after that I left home. I worked my ass off. I became a better doctor. I served my country, became a doctor without border.” He paused again when Jace was finished wrapping the bandage on his leg. That was first time since he had come in, he actually looked at us. We sat in front of him.

“His place was always empty in my life… until a week ago.” Even though he looked at us, I had a feeling he wasn’t actually looking at us. “After 18 years I had come back to home because my dad was ill. I took him to the hospital where my friend works and that’s where I saw him. He is the chief administrator there. I confronted him.” His eyes moved to Alec and back on us.

“After some huge denials, he caved in. I knew it was him. 18 years took toll on both of us. But I never forgot his smile, his smell, the way his eyes used to shine when he smiled. He promised to meet later but he tried to run again. I got angry. 18 years later I had found him. I couldn’t afford to let him run again. He refused when I asked him to stay with me. That’s when I tricked him in my car. I wanted to take him to our old place, the town where we grew up, where now there’s a bloody headstone lie with his name on it… he suddenly grabbed the wheel.”

Jace and I, we both understood that he was going to get hyper again and yet Jace let him continue.

“…I couldn’t control… the car tripped… I got out asking for help… he was stuck… lost my way… when I came back… they said… they took him… here… that cab driver gave me lift… I just want to stay with him… be with him… 18 years I’ve lost in mourning… I love him… I’ve always loved him… I just never understood… I want to tell him… I have to tell him…”

Jace reached in and put his hand on his shoulder, he looked up. He told the whole story in one go, just a few pauses here and there. It was like the story was sitting on his heart like a big boulder of stone and now when he had said that out loud he felt light.

Jace left him sitting on the bed. His eyes swimming with tears, his hands enclosing Alec’s, he kept murmuring to him like a lullaby “I am sorry for being an ass, for all these time, for not understanding you, for hurting you. Please forgive me… please come back… please stay with me… I know you love me… I promise you I’d never let you go… never, ever, and never… just one chance… just give me one chance… please, stay with me.”

I was still standing in there dumbfounded. Jace dragged me outside.

 

I maybe the chief resident of ER but Jace will always be better than me. I knew that but that night I had another proof of it. Just outside the glass door of Alec’s room I willingly stepped into Jace’s arms. He kissed my hair and murmured in ears “I promise you I’ll never leave you. I love you baby.”

I closed my eyes, turned to face him, let his words wash over me and feel safe and warm in his arms. “I love you too Jace. So you don’t even dare to leave me ever.” I tiptoed and kissed him. I could feel Jace’s smile. Jace, Dr. Jace Wayland, field medic, ex-military but more than that, Jace, my childhood friend, my school mate, college mate, best friend, boyfriend, fiancé and soon to be my husband. Jace is the love of my life, my ‘everything’.

In that one night, one patient, one story made me understand this feeling what we call ‘Love’, more than ever. One misunderstanding, one miscommunication took them away from each other for 18 years. I personally assumed that maybe Alec wanted to run away because he couldn’t accept the rejection of his best friend he fell in love with. We didn’t dare to ask how Alec survived the bus accident though.

Jace and I promised to stay by each other no matter what. That night in the café I saw Jace putting his ring on his finger. I smiled and showed my hand that I had already done it. Our hands lay together on the table, side by side with the rings. We let everyone know something that we thought we should keep quiet for a while. We knew we are meant to be together, so we let the world know. When the whole café burst in hurrahs, we understood that no shouting, no doubting, no work, no third person, not a single word or a bad move, nothing in this world can take us away from each other.

“Till the last breath…” Jace said.

“Even after that… Always and forever.” I said.

His smile was glorious, so was mine.

 

**P.S –** Later Jace found out about that guy. His name is Dr. Magnus Bane. He is a neuro surgeon and he had served his time as a field medic, like Jace. That got them to be friends. 3 days later Mr. Alec Lightwood had woken up, concussion reducing. At first he was angry as hell about Magnus who didn’t leave his side for a moment. A week later when they were leaving the hospital, they were together and happy and in love. 18 years later, at the age of 37 or so, they had finally accepted each other and promised each other to keep the promise of “Stay”. Jace’s been very happy since then.

**Final note –** Jace has most certainly invited them in our wedding and hoping for the same invitation from them as well. “You never know… they might invite us” he says. For him and the story, I hope they do.

 

**_The End_ **

 

**Author's Note:**

> All the medical procedure and use of medicine depicted and explained here are either a product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real procedures is entirely coincidental. So please, do not try these at home or consider them as reference facts.
> 
> There are some editing difference with the original story that was posted on Instagram as the last and final editing was done before posting the story here.  
> Please leave comments if you want to. They are very much appreciated.  
> The tag for this story in Instagram is - #promiseofstayff


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